The Most Efficient Mode Of Transportation In America Isn't A Prius -- It's A Train

Think hybrids that go 60 miles on a gallon are efficient? Trains can go eight times as far with 2,000 pounds in their backseat. And they’re only getting smarter.

Trains are no longer the lumbering hunks of metal of the 20th century. Today's locomotives are computers on wheels, and they're beginning to take business from fuel-guzzling semi-trucks.

“From a longtime standpoint, the continued conversion from truck to rail will continue,” said GE Transportation CEO Russell Stokes Thursday at the Forbes Reinventing America conference.

GE has developed algorithms that track exactly where trains are and tell the train how much fuel it needs to burn at every moment, taking into account that it cannot come barreling down a hill or flying around a curve. The algorithms train cruise control cuts fuel costs while making railroads safer.

General Electric Transportation and
Norfolk Southern are also working together to build a software that will serve as an air traffic control for trains all across the country.

“GE and Norfolk southern have come together and come up with things that I would not have thought would be possible,” said Wick Moorman, CEO of Norfolk Southern. “Neither one of us would have done it on our own. They needed the insights into how railroads really run, and they provided the technology to us.”

Russell Stokes, CEO of GE Transportation, is helping reinvent one of America's oldest industries by making trans smarter.

Railroads have been getting more efficient over time, but the air traffic control software would be a breakthrough rail companies have been hoping to see for years.

“It has been, to some extent, the holy grail of the industry,” Moorman said.

Moving freight by rail could soon become even cheaper, as the railroads begin to experiment with switching from diesel fuel power to natural gas power. With cheaper prices in natural gas thanks to the fracking boom, rail companies could move the same amount of product for far cheaper with natural gas over time. But initially, they would have to put in huge investments, including retrofitting diesel-powered trains.

It is the first major shift in how trains are powered since locomotives went from steam and coal to diesel a half century ago.

Pricing and regulations need to be nailed down in order for railroad companies to commit to moving trains on natural gas. But trains are already the most efficient mode of transportation in America, thanks to new innovation in one of America’s oldest industries.

“The state of technology with the modern locomotive has advanced tremendously," Moorman said. "They are very sophisticated machines.”